Carnival Liberty Review Feb 16, 2013 - FTTF with Photos

[nickiford]

That evening is was elegant night. After a nap, we got ready for dinner and headed down to the Alchemy for a pre dinner drink. Officially fell in love with this bartender and all drinks he served. LOL.

Loved the Alchemy Bar. We went there many times, the menus were so neat and drinks were delicious.

The Lobby and Lido were jam-packed with photography set ups. I’m not sure whether it is just this ship or they have more photographers but it was way too busy, you could barely move and it was sooo hot. We got a pager for dinner and had to wait about 20 minutes…forgot to mention earlier, but we always do YTD.

[Jeafl]

I'm loving your review and your pictures! Can't wait to read the rest!

[nickiford]

The waiters sang at dinner.

And I finally had my first WMC of the cruise. Can’t believe it’s 3 nights in and it’s my first one.

After dinner we went to the casino and blew through about $40 in 4 minutes! We went to go see Wonderful World show…about 10 minutes in we realized that we had seen the same show on the Pride. We stayed though so Mom could watch it.

Towel Animal for tonight was a Frog.

 

The next morning we woke up to a beautiful morning in St. Thomas. All of the ports this trip were new for us so it was exciting. We had booked a St. Thomas bus tour for this day and it wasn’t until 11:30 so we had a nice leisurely breakfast in the dining. I had Cheerios today and of course hash browns!

Our tour met just outside the gates and we had a nice little air conditioned bus.

There was some pretty scary driving on these hills around St. Thomas. Some very beautiful houses.

Nice view of the ship and the Norwegian Gem in port that day.

[nickiford]

Beautiful Pics of the Bays around St. Thomas

The bus made a few stops for shopping.

The guy in the pic above wanted you to pay money to get your picture taken with the donkey. I don’t really like that kind of thing with animals so we didn’t do it. But the donkey actually looked fairly well cared for.

Magen’s Bay

This was a huge store…with very overpriced merchandise.

[nickiford]

Iguana stop on the bus trip

Senor Frog’s…just steps from the ship, we didn’t go in.

We did do some shopping at the Havensight Mall. It was right there and we heard that all of the same stores were downtown so we didn’t bother taking a taxi down there to shop. We got some beads at Pandora. They were slightly cheaper than in Canada and no tax was great.

We got back on the ship for a late lunch, we had some salad. My sister had a burrito, I think I had a deli sandwich. After that it was naptime again.

 

For dinner we went back to the dining room. We love the flat iron steak, my sister orders it almost every night. I also really like the new spring roll appetizers, I had those almost every night. I wasn’t really feeling anything on the menu this night so I ordered mac and cheese from the kids menu and they brought me the most enormous plate of mac and cheese. It looked like I didn’t even make a dent in it.

We were pretty tired tonight, so after dinner we just had a quick wander around the shops and then went to bed, we had an early excursion in Puerto Rico the next morning.

Towel animal tonight was bunny?

[Yankeegirl]

Great review...totally hooked on all things...LIBERTY!!! :)

 

The first towel animal is a Seal, I know it is a bit odd looking. lol

This past weekend when we were on the Elation my son and I went to the Towel Animal folding class and this was one of the animals they taught us how to make.:D

[nickiford]

Another beautiful day, and now we are in Puerto Rico. Our excursion was at 7:45 so we ordered room service this morning. Everything was good and it was on time. Another bus tour excursion…can you tell we aren’t really adventurous? I love a good bus tour. The driver was really entertaining. We stopped at the Capital building and San Cristobal Fort. After that we were dropped off downtown, we had a quick shop, stopped at the CVS and were back on board for a Guys Burger by noon. Here are pics from St. Thomas

[UtahCruiser1230]

I'm loving reading your review! We were on this cruise as well, my wife and I also ate in the steakhouse the first night. We had a cabana reserved on HMC, at least the refund helped pay for my cheers program!

[LadyBurdett]

Loving your review. My family is booked on this ship in June and can hardly wait. Can you tell me how much it cost for a van taxi from the airport to the ship? We have 5 people and will have a pile of luggage.

Thanks!

Deanna

[Buffalofirsttimer4]

Another bus tour excursion…can you tell we aren’t really adventurous? I love a good bus tour. The driver was really entertaining. We stopped at the Capital building and San Cristobal Fort. After that we were dropped off downtown, we had a quick shop, stopped at the CVS and were back on board for a Guys Burger by noon.

 

Quick question-did you do your excursions through Carnival or thru a private place? And if you don't mind me asking how expensive are they? (we are a family of 5 this time so cost is always a concern).

 

We are doing this same itinerary next March and I am looking for excurisons in St Thomas & San Juan. Half Moon Cay-we have a cabana and Grand Turk we always go to Jack's Shack-great food & drinks.

 

Happy Sailing!!

[seacat66]

enjoying so far! thanks.

[Coolcruise02]

Great review and pictures!

[nickiford]

Loving your review. My family is booked on this ship in June and can hardly wait. Can you tell me how much it cost for a van taxi from the airport to the ship? We have 5 people and will have a pile of luggage.

Thanks!

Deanna

 

I don't remember exactly but I'm pretty sure there was a flat rate, I think maybe $25?? I know there isnt any difference between the regular taxi and a van you just might have to wait for a van to come around.

[nickiford]

Quick question-did you do your excursions through Carnival or thru a private place? And if you don't mind me asking how expensive are they? (we are a family of 5 this time so cost is always a concern).

 

We are doing this same itinerary next March and I am looking for excurisons in St Thomas & San Juan. Half Moon Cay-we have a cabana and Grand Turk we always go to Jack's Shack-great food & drinks.

 

Happy Sailing!!

 

We always book through Carnival. I know we pay a little more but to us it is worth it. In St Thomas we did the Island tour and in Puerto Rico we did the City and Shopping Tour. If we did Puerto Rico again we probably wouldn't do a tour everything really is pretty close to walking distance, like the fort and shopping, I feel like we could have handled that one on our own but we weren't sure so we booked an excursion.

[nickiford]

More Puerto Rico pics – San Cristobal Fort

[nickiford]

[nickiford]

After the tour and wandering around Puerto Rico a bit we made a quick stop at CVS to stock up on some snacks for the way home and we were back on the ship by Noon. We had a Guys burger for lunch, it was so good. After lunch we headed up to Serenity where we got great spots again and hung out all afternoon. Around 4:00 we went for a nap and got ready for dinner. We are getting into a pretty good routine now, Serenity, nap, drinks at Alchemy and then dinner.

 

For dinner this night I had the farfalle with turkey it was good. Mom and Erica had the Seafood newburg which I normally would have had, but couldn’t due to my newfound shrimp allergy. Another melting cake and then it was time to hit the casino again. I found the slots to be very tight this week, I had gambled over a $100 at this point, which isn’t a whole lot but I don’t think I hit one bonus game. Mom was tired this evening so she headed back to the room for the evening.

 

My sister and I decided to go to Karaoke as it was Superstar live tonight. It was apparent that it seemed like the same group of people had been attending karaoke the whole week, the host seemed to know everyone! There were some very talented people. My sister got up and sang Pour Some Sugar on Me…it’s her go to Superstar live song.

 

After that we went up to check out the Mexican deck party, it was packed and a lot of fun. It was a beautiful night.

 

Towel animal this night was???? Snake with ears?? I don’t have a clue for this one.

[dperki1]

great review...love the Liberty

[marter99]

Loving your review. We'll be on the Liberty in 3 weeks - getting tooooo excited now!

[nickiford]

The next day was Grand Turk. Another beautiful day as we were pulling into Grand Turk.

Space exhibit

Margaritaville – where we settled in for the afternoon after shopping around for a bit. I bought a Del Sol t-shirt and a magnet…I collect magnets from all of the ports and places I visit.

[nickiford]

We got a great spot to sit for the afternoon. We were fairly close to the flow rider it was really cool to watch the people try that out. The guys that run it were so good at it, they were giving kids rides.

Blender drink

Jello shooters!

We ended up hanging around there until 2:30 or so and then headed back on for lunch. I tried out the Mongolian wok today, it was good! Should have discovered that place sooner! I also had my first piece of pizza of the cruise…so many good food options not enough days!

 

After that it was the usual routine, Serenity, I got a clam shell this time so I actually had my nap on Serenity. Tonight was the second elegant night. We went down to the promenade and the lobby for a drink. There were two singers in the lobby almost every night it seemed and they were pretty good. There was also an acoustic player at the red frog some days but we didn’t get to see him play.

 

Dinner tonight I had the roast chicken, my sister had the salmon and my mom had the fried chicken. I really like the new spring roll appetizer so I had it one last time. This was our second to last night but we enjoyed our steakhouse dinner so much the first night that we decided to book it again on the last night. We also had our last Warm Chocolate Melting cake this night.

After dinner we went to look at pictures. I’m really looking forward to one day where this is all automated on all ships with facial recognition technology because looking for your picture is really a big pain in the ass.

 

After that we had a very carefully timed out evening to try to see as much as we could. We first went to the see the comedian that night, it was Cowboy Bill. He was hilarious. It was over just in time for us to book it over to the theatre to see the show Just Rock. It was pretty good as well. After that we had every intention of heading over the piano bar, which we love, but hadn’t had time to even set foot into so far this cruise! But we just couldn’t do it…too tired.

 

Towel animal this night was….elephant!

[nickiford]

Today is the last day…boooo!!!

 

We got up earlier, snagged loungers and a hammock on Serenity…in order to do this you really need to be up and ready for around 7:30. We then went for breakfast at the buffet in pairs in order not to lose our spots. We were only gone for about a half hour anyway. I spent quite literally 8 hours in this hammock, reading and napping. It was a perfect day. We went for lunch in shifts as well, buffet for this as well. We didn’t make it to the Punchliners Brunch for lunch on any day. We wanted to but just didn’t fit it into the schedule.

 

We had another great dinner at the steakhouse and then got all packed up and put our suitcases out for morning. We were fairly low key this evening we had a big travel day ahead of us.

 

The next morning we got up earlier enough to go to the dining room for one last breakfast and still have time to come back to our room and be out by 8:30. Because we were FTTF we could get off whenever we wanted to.

We had a fairly late flight, not until around 1:00pm. But we just pretty much got off as soon as we were ready just in case we ran into any unforeseen delays at the airport.

 

Disembarking was a breeze, got our suitcases, went through customs and were probably out the door within 15 minutes. We got in line for a taxi and a van came through just in perfect time for us.

 

Miami airport was easy to figure out and we had a nice quiet gate near the end of a wing. We waited the few hours and had a very turbulent flight home. Probably the worst flight I have ever been on. You know its bad when the pilot makes the flight crew sit down and put their seatbelts on! Air Canada has a great in flight entertainment system and I had my ipad to play games on so the flight went by quickly.

 

Landed back in Canada, called for the shuttle and we were home about 2 hours later.

[nickiford]

Final thoughts, this cruise was extremely rocky for most of the trip. We were sea bands and as a result we don’t get seasick but even walking was tricky sometimes because there was so much side to side movement.

 

FTTF we loved, a few times I went to guest services to ask questions and being able to use the shorter line was awesome. I would do it again in a heartbeat!

 

Drink coupons – not having the drink coupons was fine for us. I probably won’t pre-buy any of the credits anymore just because just in case you don’t use them you can’t get your money back. It was a little confusing with the soda coupons, we had 8 soda coupons. But now that they transferred the coupons into credits, you don’t necessarily end up with 8 sodas…we ended up with about 5. Didn’t really care either way.

 

Room steward – we barely saw him but we had ice every day because we had asked for it and a nicely made up room. The couch remained made into a bed everyday.

 

My favourite port on the cruise was Grand Turk. To us, sitting around the Magaritaville pool was reminiscent of the all inclusive trips that we used to take before we started cruising.

 

To anyway who can’t find anything to eat or anything to do on these ships must be nuts. We still haven’t had a chance to try and do everything and this was our 3rd cruise!!

 

If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask. I don’t have another cruise planned just yet, but I still check these boards a lot. My trip next year is a special one for my 40th birthday, but it actually doesn’t involve a cruise! I am doing an Adventures by Disney trip with a girlfriend to California.

 

Thanks for reading!

[Pellaz]

Great review...brings back great memories of our cruise!

 

We were unlucky for HMC on our cruise, too; missed it due to weather and high swells. The cabana cancellation credit paid for most of the rest of my onboard expenses. though. :)

[nickiford]

Great review...brings back great memories of our cruise!

 

We were unlucky for HMC on our cruise, too; missed it due to weather and high swells. The cabana cancellation credit paid for most of the rest of my onboard expenses. though. :)

 

It seems that it is missed quite a lot.